ROANOKE, Va – Several agencies are looking for suspects from the riots at the United States Capitol building on Wednesday.
The breach is raising questions about a lack of preparedness from the police.
Rick Morrison spent 30 years working in law enforcement and now educates best practices in policing.
While he wasn’t in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, he said it’s not likely that Capitol Police were uninformed on the scale of the event.
“This was well planned weeks, if not probably a month or so in the making,” said Morrison.
Virginia State Police units have been deployed to Washington to help protect the Capitol as needed.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said he was assured that law enforcement could handle the situation and the ultimate response was an embarrassment.
“It is critical for the protection of our democracy. It is critical that we never have these images flash around the world again that we do a thorough investigation and people that didn’t do their job need to be removed,” said Warner.
The Associated Press is reporting that Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund will resign effective Jan. 16., after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for his resignation.
Former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said that while he wants to give the police the benefit of the doubt, there were clear mistakes made.
“It’s clear to me that the police were outnumbered, and they apparently underestimated the strength and the level of violence in that crowd and overestimated their ability to control the crowd,” Gainer said.
The FBI and DC police are looking for information, which could lead to dozens, if not hundreds of arrests.
The Department of Justice is also ready to prosecute anyone who may have traveled from Virginia to Washington who took part in the violence.
Morrison said incriminating evidence over social media will likely lead to more arrests down the line.
If you have any information you can report it directly to the FBI here.